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Our future, our universe, and other weighty topics

Sunday, November 10, 2013

We'll Need Virtual Reality for Robots

Within several decades we presumably
will have robots capable of walking around among us, acting as
helpers. One important issue is how the robots will be trained. Let
us consider the case of a robotic policeman, rather like the hero of
the movie Robocop, but entirely electronic (rather than the
man/machine blending depicted in that movie). How could such a
robotic policeman be trained?

One approach would simply be: introduce
the robot into a working situation, note any shortcomings, and
correct as necessary. But this would be extremely dangerous. Let's
imagine an example of how things could go very wrong. A robot
policeman encounters a group of young boys playfully punching at each
other, without actually trying to hurt each other. This is something
that young boys often do. But the robot policeman interprets the
arm-swinging activity as one person assaulting another. The robot
policeman then tells the boys to freeze. One boy takes out a black
colored cell-phone, but the robot misidentifies the object as a gun.
Thinking it is in danger, the robot then pulls his gun and shoots the
young boy.

Or let's imagine a family that buys a
household helper robot. The father arrives at home in his car with a
big heavy box containing a new television. He summons the robot, and
asks him to carry the big heavy box from the car, and put it in the
living room. The robot picks up the box, and takes it into the living
room, depositing it on the living room floor. Unfortunately, just
before he places it down on the floor, a two-year old toddler crawls
below the spot the robot selected to place the big heavy box. The
young child is tragically crushed by the huge heavy box.

Clearly it won't be good to allow these
types of tragic incidents to occur. What will we need is some kind of
way to train android robots before they are let loose in the real
world. How could such training occur?

One possibility is to create a huge
“sandbox” training center that would mimic conditions in the real
world. The training center would be populated by two types of android
robots: the robots that were meant to be introduced into the human
community, and other robots intended only for the training center,
robots designed to simulate human beings. Software engineers use the
term “sandbox” to mean an environment in which a software
application can be tested, without causing harm in the real world. A
training center designed to simulate a real-world environment would
be kind of a giant “sandbox” for robots to be tested in. If a
robot made a mistake, he might damage or destroy one of the training
robots designed to simulate humans. But no real human would be hurt.

Such a sandbox training center would
probably be a good idea, but it would be very expensive to create
such centers. It would be particularly expensive to create training
robots designed to simulate human beings.

Is there some less expensive way that
robots could be trained? There is: virtual reality. It seems that
virtual reality training might be a vital component of the training
of advanced robots.

A robot using virtual reality for training

Here is how it might work. A virtual
environment could be created to train robots, an environment similar
to the virtual worlds created for video games. A robot could then be
allowed to train in such an environment. Instead of interpreting
visual data from the real world, the robot would interpret visual
data supplied by the virtual reality system. If the robot made a
mistake, it would never cause real-world death or destruction, but
merely death or destruction in the virtual world.

We can imagine, therefore, a sequence
that could be used to train new android robots:

First, a new model of android
robot would spend extensive time training in a computer generated
virtual reality environment. As it was training, any problems in the
robot's responses would be noted, and corresponding corrections
would be made in the robot's software.

If it passed these tests, the new
model of android robot would spend time in a physical “sandbox”
environment consisting only of itself and other robots designed to
simulate humans. As it was training, any problems in the robot's
responses would be noted, and corresponding corrections would be
made in the robot's software.

Finally, if it succeeded well
enough in the physical “sandbox” environment, the new model of
robot would be sent out into the real world to interact with actual
humans.

The same approach may become an option
in the future for training human beings for certain types of jobs
that must be performed properly, or else people will die. For
example, imagine someone training to be a doctor.

First, the student could spend
extensive time using virtual reality training programs, interacting
with computer-generated patients with computer-generated symptoms.

Then, the student could spend time
in a physical “sandbox” environment containing only robots who
simulated sick human beings. We can imagine robots deliberately
manufactured with fake cancers and fake bone fractures, which would
make great tools for training surgeons.

Finally the student could be let
loose to begin treating actual human beings.

Copyright Notice

All posts on this blog are authored by Mark Mahin, and are protected by copyright. Copyright 2013-2014 by Mark Mahin. All rights reserved. Any resemblance between any fictional character and any real person is purely coincidental.